Teacher Voice Counts, So Let's Start the Conversations

The spring of 2012 is shaping up to be a pretty important season.  Contract negotiations have been intense, organization in response to the Stand for Children initiative is gearing up, and momentum around increasing membership participation and voice through a voting proposal will be building.

It’s a particularly meaningful and important time for us as teachers to get involved and support positive change in whatever way possible.  As the historian Howard Zinn famously suggested, you can’t be neutral on a moving train.  Depending on the metaphorical locomotive of discussion, it’s going to take individuals and groups acting in concert to either speed up or slow down these trains.  Or in some cases, to even lay some new tracks.

At the end of February, based on ongoing conversations with a number of teachers and friends, I introduced a companion Survey Tool through The Teaching Pulse website to amplify and build upon the theme of the Talk to Teachers campaign.  The idea is based on a simple, dual premise: 1) the voices of teachers matter and 2) there’s nothing more compelling in this day and age than data.

The steps to make this happen are also intended to very doable ones:  1) develop a survey around a particular topic or theme, 2) distribute the survey to the intended audience of teachers, 3) analyze and interpret the results and 4) present that information as needed to advocate for our students and our work in educating them.

For this column, I’d like to re-pose the question and propose possible topics for survey development:

What collective information would be useful to solicit from the teachers in our individual school or job settings?  How might that information be helpful in surfacing particular issues or opportunities to enhance and support our work in the classroom?  Or to gather information that would be helpful for our individual school, union or district leadership to know?  And ultimately respond to?

In other words, let’s continue to work on inviting and building upon the voices, experiences and ideas of teachers.  Some of us may be interested in getting involved with some of the broader, district-wide issues I raised at the beginning of this column.  Others may want to ‘activate’ teacher participation and leadership around themes of classroom instruction and figuring out ways to share best practices.  Yet others may want to focus on issues and opportunities specific to an individual school.

Here are a few examples of possible topics, along with sample statements that can be answered by the typical Likert scale of responses (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree).

Student Attendance Concerns.  As one teacher recently raised, ongoing concerns of low student attendance in her classes and her school overall have been making instruction extremely challenging.  Here are some statements that might comprise a survey to all the staff in her building to raise initial patterns while also providing some next possible steps in terms of discussion and/or sharing best practices.

• Student attendance issues (ie: frequent absences and student tardiness) affect my ability to plan and teach students effectively.

• I have developed (and would be willing to share) good strategies in my classroom that minimize the effect of absences or student tardiness.

• I believe that a standardized and consistently applied attendance policy throughout the school would help me in my classroom.

Voting in the BTU.  Turnout and participation in the BTU’s biannual elections have been a concern and challenge for many teachers.  Here are some possible statements that could generate useful baseline information.

• I vote regularly in the BTU elections.

• I am generally satisfied with the diversity of opinions, experiences and positions represented by the candidates for BTU leadership positions

• I think the current voting structure is an effective way of encouraging BTU members to vote

• I would be more likely to vote in BTU elections if they were held at my individual school or through a mail-in ballot

• I think that more teachers would participate in BTU elections and be involved if they knew more about the issues and had the opportunity to contribute.

Sharing Best Practices.  A number of past contributors and commenters have indicated strong interest in learning from each other and creating more pathways for teachers to share best practices—both within schools and between them.  Some possible statements are below.

• The professional development offerings from the school district and those required in my school meet my needs.

• I would like to see the BTU take an increased leadership role in the professional development of teachers

• I would be willing to learn from and adapt new instructional strategies from other teachers

• I have a best practice that relates to ____insert topic here____ that I would be willing to share

• I would be willing to participate in a district-wide cohort of teachers to pilot and jointly refine a targeted, instructional practice

I hope these topics give a glimpse of what is possible.  Do visit the online forum at www.theteachingpulse.org if you are interested in further developing these or other surveys, and get in touch with me.  I’d be glad to help in any way that I can!

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You never know when and where the connections can come, but there is definitely something resonant between these particular worlds–of professional sports and education–in this Fox sports article about LSU football player (and top NFL prospect) Morris Claiborne.  Apparently, as part of the NFL Combine experience, where NFL hopefuls demonstrate their particular sets of athletic and intellectual skills, there is also something called the Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test that all prospects need to take.  It was leaked that Claiborne supposedly got a basement-level score of 4 out of 50 correct–prompting internet buzz of the least flattering (and in some cases ugly) sort.

Morris Claiborne of LSU

Column author Peter Schrager takes issue with it in his article below.  He points out quite gracefully Claiborne’s own gifts as well as the fact that he has a learning disability, through which he worked with tutors and accessed university programs to maintain his grades for eligibility.  A ‘feel-good story that should be celebrated,’ Schrager explains.

So of course, most of us don’t know Claiborne personally, or the courses that he took, or even the measure of his character.  But isn’t there something to this story that rings familiar?  High stakes test prompting a particular level of anxiety, generalized interpretation and in the worst cases, a public shaming?  Tests and assessments do matter, high stakes or not.  But they shouldn’t be, and clearly aren’t, everything.

It’s a pleasant experience walking through the front doors of the Boston Teachers Union School.  It might have just been me, but the floors seemed particularly gleaming, the colors on the bulletin boards especially bright and the teacher conversations meaningful and intense.

Now in its third year of operation, the BTU school opened in September 2009 as a pilot school with seven classrooms and by the next academic year, will be operating as a full K-8 school with one class for each K-5 grades and two classes for grades 6-8.

Betsy Drinan Multi-Tasks

Needless to say, all the staff and school partners, including co-lead teachers Betsy Drinan and Berta Berriz, have been hard at work.  As a teacher-run school, one with two seasoned teachers at the lead and the multiple autonomies of being a pilot school to manage—including the domains of hiring, budget, curriculum, scheduling and governance—there is a lot of work to be done.

Betsy’s office on this particular late Friday afternoon in October reflected this state of being.  Within the first few minutes of my arrival at the main office, she was finishing up a tense conversation with another teacher, fielded a phone call about a bus issue, buzzed in an afterschool partner, and managed to get a breath at the same time.

I was almost sorry to be putting her through yet another activity.  But I also knew that she would have a lot to say, especially from her perspective as an experienced teacher and in particular, as a teacher playing a very unique role as a designated school leader.

***

Thanks for taking the time to meet with me and talk a little bit about yourself as a teacher and one of the key lead teachers of the BTU school.

One of the key themes of The Teaching Pulse is an attempt to make conversations around best teaching practices a central focus of our professional organization.  And one way I’m hoping to do that is by talking to some of the best teachers in the district and sharing those conversations with other teachers across the city.

I hope that these questions help guide us into a great conversation.

Is there a typical day in the life of Betsy Drinan, teacher leader at the BTU school?

Well, it’s non-stop.  I would say that.  It’s a non-stop job.  [Last] year, we were short-staffed [but] the student weighted formula worked in our favor and we got extra funds to hire a social worker and paraprofessionals to assist me and [the other co-lead teacher] Berta.  It [gave] us a little bit of breathing room.  But we’ve [also] got an influx of kids in the upper school and some of them have some challenging behaviors. Some have transferred in from Middle School Academy and already have a history of issues. We want to work with and support these kids but it takes an enormous amount of time on a daily basis.

So you teach as well, right?

I do teach.   I’m an English teacher and a reading specialist and we are working on our Response to Intervention model for literacy and math.  So I do small group reading for 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grades. I teach each grade three days a week for a fifty-minute block.

The other parts of my day, I’m doing everything from student support and discipline to data meetings to curriculum meetings.  I also work on fundraising, Court Street budgets, ordering materials, getting our library developed, Governing Board, strategic planning, [organizing] family council, [overseeing] facilities management, [and fostering] parent relationships… just for a start.

How would you describe yourself now and what you do?  Do you call yourself a teacher?  A teacher-leader?  Or a building leader?

I call myself a co-lead teacher.  The title is a bit cumbersome, but that’s what it is.  I feel like I mostly coordinate.  I work with the upper school and I run ideas by people all the time.  It’s my responsibility that ideas and projects get picked up and that we follow up on them and move them forward, because they can get lost.  We are all keepers of the vision here but I feel that it is my particular job, along with everyone else, to keep us moving towards the goals we set for ourselves in our strategic plan.

Do you feel like there’s a proportion in your mind that describes the balance between being a classroom teacher and an administrator?

Well, I teach reading and I’ve been teaching reading for a long time so I have a wealth of materials to draw on.  Most of my preparation I do on the weekends at home.  I like the teaching. It keeps me grounded in what’s really central to our work. On the other hand it’s kind of hectic sometimes because sometimes I’m in the middle of something and then I think, ‘Oh!  It’s time to teach!  I have to run!’

I don’t actually think that in year three of our school I really have the balance worked out yet.

Is there one particular moment in your many years of teaching that encapsulate who you are and strive to be as an educator?

Just seeing growth in kids.  We just had our data meetings yesterday with kids we’ve had for three years now.  Kids who were struggling and scoring at the 30th percentile and now they’re at the 60^th percentile.  It’s very exciting to see that kind of growth, and to see kids engaged with books.

It is also wonderful to see the kids maturing and being able to handle situations that would have confounded them in the past. We have some 8^th grade students who have made tremendous emotional and social growth. Kids who were explosive or constantly reactive now can handle difficult situations and be more proactive in their lives. That is marvelous to see.

I know the district is interested in developing pathways for teachers to grow in their careers as lead teachers.   Are there specific innovative approaches and practices that you employ as a teacher leader that you think others might be able to develop as well? 

Well, this school is collaborative.  So it’s not my practice, it’s all of [ours] together.  We have a CCL model where we have four teachers working together and doing collaborative peer observation.  Teachers are starting to film each other, to look at the videos together, to look at student work that came out of a particular lesson, and to continue through the whole peer observation cycle.  We’re devoting part of faculty meetings to it—we have two hour meetings every Thursdays – so we can debrief there.   And that’s exciting—teachers are buzzing about getting into each others’ classrooms to see what’s going on.

In terms of leadership development I think one of the most important practices is being open to and encouraging teachers to take on projects that they feel particularly skilled at or committed to. I think it’s about opening up the leadership circle and then leaders emerge naturally.  That has not been my usual experience in other schools I have worked in.

What are the ways you make decisions at the Boston Teachers Union School? 

During our first summer retreat, we really spent a fair amount of time just getting to know each other and asked ourselves the questions—who are you, where are you coming from and how do we work together?  And what does it mean to have a shared leadership model?  They are pretty words written on a piece of paper, but what do they mean in practice?

Do you feel like you had that starry eyed look going into it?

No, not really. I knew it would be difficult but we thought hard about what shared leadership really meant.  We figured out a system so that some are decision by consensus and some are designated as leadership decisions.  [Other times], a committee is designated with the authority to make those decisions or a committee might research and bring back information to the larger group for a vote.  We’re very intentional—if all thumbs are up, we move forward.  If a thumb is down, we go back and talk it through.  And it’s actually worked.  It seems like a simple [system], but it actually works.

So you don’t feel like it’s gotten in the way of just managing the quick pace of a school?  Sometimes I hear the concerns that consensus decision-making just takes too long.

It doesn’t, though.  I think it’s the teachers [that make it work].

The decision-making is [actually] pretty fast and efficient.  We have timekeepers, we have norms, and we have facilitators.  We have to move on and if we can’t make a decision, we’ll come back to it the next time.  Teachers are busy.  [We’re] not into debating just for the sake of debating and hearing [ourselves] talk.   ‘Let’s move on and let’s keep it moving’ [is our approach].

I’ve worked in schools where you couldn’t walk in the principal’s office and talk.  I’ve worked in schools where you didn’t know anything about the decisions being made.  I’ve worked in schools where there were no meetings.  I’ve gone from working in non-profit agencies in the world of social work where you had meetings every week and there were supervision meetings to a school where there [were no regular staff meetings at all].  Scary. How can you run such a complex organization as a school without regular faculty meetings?

Is it fair to say that your office is open to other teachers coming in is because you are a teacher as well?

I think that’s really the truth because I’m not the boss here.  I can’t make decisions and just go with what I want.  I have to go back to them.  It’s the way we’re established.  I am the co-lead teacher.  I am not the head of school in that sense.  And we have strong-minded people here.  So God forbid I make a decision and not check with people.

It sounds like there’s a different kind of accountability here.  You’re accountable to the other teacher staff as the co-lead teacher but they’re accountable to you, too… and you have certain responsibilities they understand as well.

Right, and we’re all responsible to the students.  The stakes are high here. We were talking about the stress and the demands of this job [the other day], particularly on teachers with young kids at home and this teacher suggested that maybe he should have stayed at his former school—[because, sorry to say], the expectations were less there.  [It’s different at this school, though].  The expectations are high.

Who makes them high?

We all do.  We all do.  We feel responsible to our students and families, and to our union and profession.  I do.  We need to be a good school… you know plenty of people told me that  -‘Ok, Betsy!  It better be good!’ (laughing)

That’s actually a good bridge. You mentioned before how the BTU school is successful.  What are your thoughts on the Boston Teachers Union as a professional organization?  What does it do well, what does it need to do better, how can we include more voices to make it a stronger union?

I wish that our union could be more of a collaborative partner with the district. Generally, I’m not a believer in polarization.  Maybe strategically every once in a while, it’s [necessary to have this stance], but [I disagree with] continual polarization.  Demonizing people [is counterproductive] and there’s an awful lot of that going on in our society…demonizing teachers, teacher unions, and [even] individual schools.

I’d like to see our profession and our union do more in terms of proposing solutions to specific problems.  We’re so much under attack these days that [sometimes it is all we can do to] just try to fend off the attack.  I know that takes a lot of energy and I’m grateful that our union is strong and we do have some degree of power and protection.  But on the other hand, there are important issues where maybe we could be more proactive.

One that’s front and center for me is the issue of differing policies and missions between certain charter school and BPS schools.  I had a conversation with [an administrator] from a local charter school the other day and he stated that any kid that gets into a fight is automatically expelled given their zero tolerance policy.  He then modified this by saying that they would give the student the opportunity to withdraw so their record wasn’t impacted but that the kid would definitely be gone.  I asked him where the kids went next but he ignored my question.

The question is whether there is a basic difference in our missions.  The BPS is here to serve all the kids – not contribute to the increasing educational stratification going on in our country.

But what about those kids though?  Our system isn’t as responsive as it needs to be.

But you don’t have the background or resources…

Even if I do have the background because I have some, I don’t have the personnel to work with [students with particular risk factors]. I am not in favor of expelling [students] from the system. I am in favor of us developing and providing intensive services to help turn things around for them.

But you’re right, we need the resources and the extra personnel to do this.  Teachers could help the district figure this out. It is critical for these young people.

It sounds as if we in the larger education community need to trust teachers and the teaching staff to recognize what students need.

Exactly, exactly.

I’d like to see our union become a center of education for teachers.  When I was at a recent AFT conference, I talked to people at the Education Research and Dissemination Program and the courses they offer [on research-based professional development].  Let’s get our union to be a center of ER&D.  They’ll do it for no charge!  And I think that the union could be the go-to place for good, quality professional development.

How would you think that would change the dynamic between the school district and the teachers union, one that can often be tense or harsh in tone?

First of all, if the BTU were a center for professional development you might get a different or more varied group of people going to the union hall because people would be coming there to get their quality PD.  It would strengthen our union and maybe could increase collaboration with the district.

In terms of changing the dynamic between the district and the union though, that’s a tough one. A lot of the issues that are so divisive nationally are front and center in our negotiations. To me [for example], merit pay is really more of an insult than anything else—a simple, corporate mentality type of solution to a complicated problem. Just pay the teachers a bonus and they will work harder and things will be better? Do they even have a clue? If they have all this extra funding why not ensure that every school has a social worker, reading and math specialists and updated library and technology resources to start? Give us the personnel to work with our most troubled kids.

I think it would be worthwhile for the district to reach out in a more concerted way to explain why they are pushing some of the changes they are.  On the other hand, we as the teachers union need to be willing to look at new ways to do things also.

Good and open communication is key. The adversarial positions we are often forced into really are not conducive to good problem-solving.

In your role as a co-lead teacher, Betsy, do you feel your views have changed at all about what it means to be a good teacher?  Or what it means to be a good building administrator?

I have a different perspective now in the sense that I’m a lot more cognizant of the overall organism.  I consider a school as a complex living organism.  And I’ve always been somebody that has [considered] systems.  I like to look at the whole, how it all works.  But when you’re a classroom teacher in a big school, and especially in schools where you have limited information—never mind input—you just see your classroom.

Now, I see the whole school.  And it’s a house of cards sometimes – it can be a delicate balancing act.  It doesn’t take much to stress the organization.

Can you offer one or two suggestions that would help schools build a collaborative environment that would benefit everybody?

You have to break down that artificial barrier.  The [idea of] administrators against the teachers is ridiculous if you hope to build a successful school.  It’s a ridiculous situation that’s artificially created…and some people work to maintain it for whatever reason.  It’s always easier to have the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’ and most of the time it’s not that simple.  Though sometimes it is that simple…(laughing)

But in schools, it’s usually not.  Especially as we have increasing demands that our schools are the center for socialization, education, poverty reduction… they are supposed to do everything.  We’re supposed to do everything.

People have to take the time to get to know each other and develop some level of trust. There has to be an openness and willingness to discuss the issues as well as mutual respect. If the respect isn’t authentic it will be hard to work together successfully.

You’re asking interesting questions that I haven’t really spent the time thinking about.  And it makes me think now that I do have a perspective having come from both sides here to look at it in a way to say, ‘what are models looking forward that we can create that sustain this work in a more viable way?’

Right, something that can be transferred and replicated.

Right.  So much of it is about staffing.  If I had three more people, four more people, I could take the woman who was just here and have her teach one less class.  And give her the responsibilities for developing and implementing our writing curriculum across the building as a part of her regular position instead of an extra responsibility she is willing to take on because she is committed. But how much can you reasonably ask people to do?

The reality is, they can talk all they want about restructuring teacher leader pathways and things, but you have to have more people to do that. The reality is, we are spread so thin. We do not have enough people to do everything we want to do.

The Boston Public Schools and urban public schools in general are understaffed.  Give us a few more people. One of our teachers taught in Brookline before she came into Boston and it is fascinating to hear her talk about the extra people who were available to her on a regular basis in Brookline.

I hope in some way, we figure out a way to look at the systems you have in place and the needs that you have; we don’t often communicate and learn from each others’ experiences in a shared way.

There’s so little of that.  It’s stunning.  You were asking me about sharing with other administrators so here’s what happens.  We have these district meetings and the parts that are often the most worthwhile are the conversations that you have during the breaks.  Like the, ‘how do you do such-and-such?’ and ‘what do you have in place for student support and how do you structure that?’ and ‘what are doing with your writing curriculum?’  Because there is no place for that.  And there isn’t a place for it for teachers, by and large—we’re trying to do it, but we’re not that big.  We only have one 7^th and 8^th grade ELA teacher, and one 7^th and 8^th grade math teacher.

Again, the union could be a natural place for that… calling all 3^rd grade teachers, you know?  Let’s talk about how you teach 3^rd grade.  What are you doing?  Because people are hungry for that.  And you get great ideas.  Sure, I can go online and read a million things, but it’s not the same.  Let me show you, you know?  It’s more fun.  And school leaders to school leaders.  What systems do [we all] have in place to motivate students?  I want to talk to the charter schools.  I want to hear what they’re doing because they’ve got some good ideas.  But who’s pulling us together?  Nobody really, in the sense of providing time to simply share ideas and brainstorm together.

Outside of individuals or happenstance…

Right.  You talk to your friends and people you know, but in a complex profession that we have, to stand in a classroom of twenty-six kids and keep them all motivated and engaged, learning specific skills and big ideas, [and differentiating]?  It’s like magic when you do it.  It’s highly complicated.  And it’s really hard.

And awesome when it works and it’s done well.  Are there any words you’d like to end with?

I wish I had more time to pursue these [conversations] of moving our profession and our union forward.  I don’t right now (laughing).  There’s no doubt about that.

I feel very fortunate to have been given this opportunity.

Betsy Drinan of the Boston Teachers Union School

***

And I might extend this idea to say that all of us have this opportunity.  What do you think?  Please consider visiting the online forum at www.theteachingpulse.org to offer your reactions, thoughts and ideas.

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Let's Not Do This...

Sometimes I really miss Calvin and Hobbes.  Let’s just hope that we don’t get too many Calvin-istic ‘creative survey takers’ for the following teacher outreach suggestion!

In the spirit of the Talk to Teachers campaign, I’d like to introduce The Teaching Pulse forum as a tool for us to ‘pulse’ teachers within our individual schools.  This website has a simple polling function that allows the creation of simple multiple choice questions with immediate, cumulative results.  Poll responses are also anonymous.  Please see (and take) the sample polls below as examples.

Here comes the more challenging (and exciting) part: 

What collective information would be useful to solicit from the teachers in our individual school or job settings?  How might that information be helpful in surfacing particular issues or opportunities to enhance and support our work in the classroom?  Or to gather information that would be helpful for our individual school, union or district leadership to know?  And ultimately respond to?

The possibilities are really endless.  Please respond to this post with comments with some potential ideas, topics or even specific questions that might be useful.  For teachers outside of Boston or other allies, your thoughts are welcome too!  Then, I’d be more than happy to specifically collaborate with individual teachers from specific schools to design, finalize and then create the survey.  Or possibly even survey templates around certain themes as they emerge.

Sound good?

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The main thing I don’t like about this cartoon is that it overly pathologizes the students in the classroom.  It does effectively home in on some resonant misgivings, though:  that the approach in generic ‘education reform’ tends to focus on what teachers do wrong instead of right, that the media and the generic politician tend to love this framing (we need to get rid of these incompetent teachers!) and that the challenges of teaching in our school system today–from the complex range of circumstances our students may be facing to the mania of over testing– are very real.

Thoughts?  What might this teacher say in response to this particular framing and accusation?

What's Wrong With This Picture?

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“I don’t really think there was a secret ingredient other than people being able to move past their doubts and seize an opportunity.  It was a chance to create opportunities where the rewards outweighed the risks.   I don’t think we do that much in public education…”

“You need to build systems…to demonstrate that teachers, by and large, succeed in their work.”

“I think that we, as unions and teachers, have felt so victimized by accountability that we have almost betrayed our own mission as a profession.”

Brad Jupp, Education Sector Interview in April 2006

***

Brad is a very laid back guy.  And that’s particularly impressive when you consider his current position as the Senior Program Advisor for Teacher Quality Initiatives in the U.S. Department of Education.  This is an individual who has the ear of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and has considerable, if not central, influence on any federal policies that relate to teacher quality and effectiveness.

U.S. Department of Education Senior Advisor Brad Jupp

As a former middle school English teacher and union activist in the Denver public schools, he is most known for his role in the development of Denver’s ProComp teacher compensation system—one which ties teacher incentives to both school and student performance and growth.

I met Brad through the Teaching Ambassador Program, a teaching fellowship designed to orient and involve teachers in national, state and local education policy.  A total of four BPS teachers, incidentally, have been a part of, or currently participate, in this program, including Steven Berbeco from Charlestown High School, Shakera Walker from Young Achievers Science and Math School and Robert Baroz from the Curley School.   Applications for the 2012-2013 cohort have recently opened so definitely take a look and pass on the word.

He was generous enough to spend nearly an hour with me this past November while attending the Council of the Great City Schools conference in Boston.  I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, especially as it related to one of the core questions of The Teaching Pulse:  What local, statewide and national policy initiatives should we teachers be aware of, and what are practical ways and avenues to influence and implement those policies?’

***

Thanks, Brad, for taking the time to meet and talk with me this morning.  It’s an incredible privilege.  One key goal of this interview is to emphasize the idea that [education] policy is important, policy affects us and at times, we can actually shape it.

How would you best describe your role in the U.S. Department of Education and what you do?

I comprehend it first by its breathtaking scale.  I was always overwhelmed in Denver by how many teachers I represented when I was a union leader and how many teachers worked for us when I was in the superintendent’s office.  [And] I knew most of them.

In the Department of Education, what I think is amazing is [to consider] this huge river of 3.3 million people.  The teaching workforce is enormous.  And it works under incredibly decentralized circumstances.  You can’t say that the teacher who works in New Jersey works under the same circumstances as the one who teaches in California.  But you also can’t say that the teacher who works in Los Angeles works under the same circumstances as the teacher who works in Sacramento.  And so it’s not just a problem of enormity, it’s a problem of complexity.

Size and decentralization makes for enormity and complexity.  [It’s] been a real challenge to learn the best ways to shape the directions that the people who make up this river of people flow in.  There’s a current [in this river, for instance] where 30% of the people who have been hired have left the job within two or three years after they were hired.  You should ask:  ‘What’s causing that current’?’  Then you should ask, ‘what can be done to alter that current?’  And in something that’s enormous and something that’s complicated, it’s not going to be a simple, single gesture.

So I think the short end of this long introduction is that learning how to make the right precise moves to change the trajectory of the teaching profession has been the greatest challenge of the job that I’ve been in for the past two and a half years.  It’s not been easy.

[It seems] like a tremendous role and responsibility, to not only identify and understand what the currents are, but to also try and establish interventions, policies or even [think them through]…

Very often what people do wrong is [when] they come in with a political orientation and some policy preferences.  And they impose them.  I think the case that I was making is that you actually have to learn how these currents move before you do that, before you can alter them effectively.

I’m making the case for knowing how this workforce moves rather than knowing the right sets of policy interventions.

So you’re thinking of yourself more as a gatherer of information, understanding how it works…

Maybe the right word for it, James, and I know it might not be good interview material because it’s too abstract… I’m a pragmatist.  I work with the materials and conditions that I got.  I’m not an idealist.  I don’t work backwards from a set of perfect ideas that I think need to be imposed on this incredibly complex and decentralized workforce.

Nice… well, to bring it back to the day-to-day, because you have this experience, how has being a teacher yourself and an accomplished unionist affected how you do your work now? 

So, I think the teacher weighs much more heavily than the union background.  To be a good teacher I had to be constantly ask, ‘What do kids know, how is their knowledge changing, and what evidence am I using to feel confident that their knowledge is changing the way I hope it will?’  I use that way of thinking in every aspect of my work, whether I’m working with the state leader, union leader, school teachers, [or] a governor.  ‘What do they know?’  Then I ask, ‘how do I know that what they know is changing and what evidence am I going to use?’  I apply that way of thinking with everybody.

I think what I bring from my background as a union leader, first and foremost, is the sentiment that working people want first and foremost, good, fruitful jobs; not the political struggle that they often find themselves in.  And then second, I bring a really three-dimensional understanding of the psychology that [often] occurs in the relationship between unions and school districts, [and between] unions and state legislatures… Frankly, I’ve been on all sides of the table.  And I have an insight into what’s in people’s heads on all sides of the table at this point.  And that’s because [like I mentioned earlier], I pay attention to [connecting evidence to shifts in understanding with] whomever I’m working.  Over the years, [I’ve gathered] an experience base in thinking like a leader of a local, of thinking like a leader of a state affiliate, or thinking like a superintendent or thinking like a governor’s education policy aide.

So the union experience is double.  I understand the aspirations of the people that unions represent and I also understand the motivations and sentiments of people who represent large numbers of teachers.

I love the word ‘attentiveness’ because I think that cognitively, that’s really complex.  Especially when you come in with your ideas or you may be influenced, as we all are, by a political background, or way of looking at the work, or personal experiences that affect how we do our work.   To be attentive doesn’t mean you disregard it, but you almost categorize it in your head a certain way so that you’re looking at things fairly and really listening to all the different perspectives.

You can never disabuse yourself of your own biases but you can always take into account someone else’s as you try to create progress.

That’s a nice one… (laughing)

So one of the goals of this column is to [emphasize] that education policy is something that is important for teachers to understand.  So from your perspective and position in the Department of Education, what are the most important policy initiatives that teachers should be aware of right now?  In particular, which ones directly impact us in our classrooms?

I think the most important policy initiative is actually a bundle of different initiatives that are associated with college and career ready standards.  I’ve been in the classroom or in jobs that have been close to the classroom for twenty-five years and in the course of those years, I’ve seen three to four sets of standards wash up on the beach of my classroom.  And they didn’t really affect what I did much, although the last set that washed up in the form of accountability initiatives that preceded NCLB in Colorado did affect the way my school was organized because we started to care a lot more about whether kids were proficient or not and we began to pay a lot more attention to kids on the cusp of proficiency.  Because the numbers made us pay attention to them.   We didn’t know if it was the right thing or the wrong thing; I think it was probably somewhere in the middle, but until there [were] external circumstances asking us to pay attention to proficiency rates, the standards were largely aesthetic.  They were binders with suggested student content that we were supposed to apply as English teachers if our kids were to be on track.

So would you say that there wasn’t oversight there?

Until there was external accountability at the state level, there were not powerful, coercive forces to make us pay attention to the standards, so we didn’t.  We did what we wanted.  Now I’m not for powerful and coercive standards, I’m for recognizing that before the accountability movement, there was not a lot of attention to what the state standards were or what the district standards were, at least in [the] Denver Public Schools.  And with that, there was not much attention [paid] to whether or not kids were succeeding on the standards.

To this end, I think that the powerful thing about College and Career Ready Standards comes in two steps.  The first step is if we as a profession are going to get serious, we’re not going to be coerced into owning the outcomes of these standards, but we’re going to adopt them because they’re the right, good thing.  And the second is, if we’re going to be serious about those standards, and serious about the fact that they’re supposed to get all kids to college and career readiness, we’re going to be serious about the fact that the work that we have to do in order to attain those standards is different than the work we’re doing now.  And I contend, because I’ve studied them as an English teacher, the language arts expectations under College and Career Ready Standards are as good as my expectations when I entered the field in the 1980s… and very, very difficult to execute in the classroom.

When we as a profession embrace these [new standards], we’re embracing them because they’re the right thing for the kids to do, but we’re also embracing them as hard work.  And we’re going to need to honest with ourselves that they will challenge us, me, and my colleagues to do new and sometimes more difficult things.

I’m convinced that just as College and Career Ready standards are really important, I’m also convinced that a lot of the debate around teacher effectiveness, a lot of the debate around teacher capital management, is actually small fry compared to this big fish.

So it’s about the Common Core [the adopted College and Career Ready Standards framework].

The Common Core is something that the profession, if it chooses to own it, and chooses to own it as thoroughly as I just described it, will actually just swamp all of the little squeaky arguments of ‘this measure of teacher performance’ or ‘that human capital management decision to give somebody a raise or to advance someone to new rung on a career ladder…’

So the Common Core is a more significant policy issue than even the Flexibility Waivers that states are currently applying for as related to No Child Left Behind?

Yes, because I don’t think you can actually do the next generation of accountability systems that are anticipated by the [Elementary and Secondary Education Act] Flexibility, without the Common Core to animate them.

Can you think of some practical ways and avenues that you might suggest for teachers to understand, influence and implement policies like these in our school districts at the local level?  How do we make policy less abstract and how do we understand it, influence it and implement it?

Be a building rep for your union, be on your building faculty senate or building committee, partner with people in the central office so that you are a practitioner [figuring out] the difficult problems of execution with administrators, because just like teachers don’t want reform to be done to them, they want it to be done with them, administrators want policy implementation to be done with them, not policy implementation arguments done to them.  And we should assume that no one wants to be part of that kind of loud argument.

And don’t hesitate to use those opportunities to be building reps and union leaders and district leaders as vehicles for career advancement.  The ambitions of teachers to be successful and efficacious are the things that actually animate the best things about their career.  And we should always be encouraging teachers to act on those aspirations.

So even in those particular roles, if those conversations aren’t happening, [should we] begin them?

Begin them, encourage them to come, and then also ask… we’ve talked about this now two or three times, ask ‘what is going on in the minds of the other people in this dialogue that would lead it to be successful or unsuccessful?  And how can I take into account their motives and my motives so we’re not adversaries but we’re solving the same problem?’

And that, I think, the idea that we’re working together to solve common problems, is the beginning of almost all progress.

That’s a perfect segway for the last two pieces [of this interview].  It sounds like collaboration and [the conditions that are] required for collaboration to take root.  

I read a really great interview that you did with Education Sector in April of 2006, the year following the successful funding and implementation of ProComp initiative in the Denver Public Schools.  At one point, you said: I don’t really think there was a secret ingredient other than people being able to move past their doubts and seize an opportunity. It was a chance to create opportunities where the rewards outweighed the risks. I don’t think we do that much in public education.

What can we do, as teachers and as members of our teachers union, to make this happen more often in general?  Or even more specifically, here in the Boston Public Schools?

In a sentence, navigate towards your best hopes and away from your worst fears.

Too much of the adversarial discourse in public education is discourse buttressed by worst fears.  ‘What if the worst principal in the world were in charge of that school?’  We need a rule to protect all teachers against the possibility of the worst principal in the world.

It’s the wrong way to be organized.  [We] should be organizing instead on ‘how do we get the best principal in the world in as many schools as we’ve got?  That means that we’re going to need really great incentive packages for principals, and by golly they might need to be paid more than teachers and as maybe as a teacher union leader, I need to advocate that we accelerate the pay for high school principals so that the working conditions in my high schools get better.

It’s a simple example, but if you begin to think like that, then you can begin to proliferate other examples.

So is it up to the individual teachers in our buildings as building reps, as partners with district officials, to talk and frame the conversation in that way?  Because sometimes a lot of the rhetoric out there is very negative, as you’re probably already aware.. how do we break through that?

I think the most important thing that teacher leaders can do is to say, ‘But wait. There are some benefits here.  But wait.  What are the right, prudent ways to protect against the fair things that are being raised by the people who are afraid against worst hopes?’

We didn’t say, when we negotiated ProComp, ‘let’s embrace the arbitrary and capricious.’  We said instead, ‘let’s embrace the reasonable, the consistent, the credible…’ and then we said, ‘let’s make sure we’re protecting against the arbitrary and capricious by embracing [the] reasonable and consistent and credible.’  We never said anything about getting it all right.  We always said though, we want to keep our antennae up and avoid treating people badly.  And what’s more, we made a commitment to use data as a way to inform our future decisions so that we were not being arbitrary and capricious.

And when you say ‘we,’ you mean… as teachers or as the collaborative team?

Labor and management, the collaborative team.  Absolutely.

What was the structure of that team?

There were a number of different shared decision-making bodies.  One, the design team that led the pay-for-performance pilot, was two teachers and two administrators who managed the implementation of a difficult project.  Another, the joint salary task force, was five teachers, three principals and two central officers who managed the policy development for the pay system.  And there were other collaborative bodies as well.  There were management teams, there were executive teams, and at all levels, we made sure that there were good problem solving ethics and a high degree of pragmatic practice, guiding the way we did our work.

We didn’t negotiate much, we problem solved a whole lot.

But were those particular task forces borne of negotiations?  Was there a deliberate decision to create those collaborative groups?

So this is really important, James.

All of those bodies were borne from their need, not from the preconceived agreement and in fact, one of the hallmarks of the early pay-for-performance pilot was that we adapted the design team away from what it was originally agreed to do into something very different.

And we didn’t reopen the labor agreement to do it.

I’m a strong believer that pre-textual power sharing agreements only go so far.  And most labor agreements, especially most agreements to collaborate, are just pre-textual power sharing agreements.   What I care more about is not the power sharing, but the outcomes.  Power sharing to no outcome is useless; it just makes people comfortable.

What we did in the period of time from the beginning of the pay-for-performance pilot through the successful election in ProComp was to create problem-solving tables in which the problem that needed to be solved trumped the power-sharing relationship, at any moment.

That was just the tacit understanding?  That was the agreement from the people at the table and how they communicated?

At the risk of making it sound mystical, because it wasn’t, it was the culture that we led together.  And it was the way that we framed the problem.  And I don’t want to make it sound like there were human variables or like I was one of them because I don’t think either of those things are totally true.  But between 2006 and 2009 when the leadership of the union and the school district became more adversarial over ProComp, it was often because they couldn’t… they didn’t cultivate that kind of culture in their discussions.  And instead what they did is they rooted themselves more deeply in the need to share power as a way to solve problems.  And you know, it’s pretty obvious that they didn’t solve their problems and they didn’t share their power.

That’s going to be a fun quote for the people in Denver.  (laughing)

Any final advice on how to best reach out to each other as teachers to get behind a system or a particular professional approach where ‘the rewards outweigh the risks?’  I mean you talked about how to get involved, of going towards your best hopes versus your worst fears [and] the specific roles you can do.. Anything else you’d like to offer to say ‘here’s how we should be organizing and thinking as teachers?’

Final thought here.  I say this a lot when I’m working with people that view unions as an inscrutable other, such as [those in] reform organizations or people training to be superintendents.

I say, ‘when was the last time that you changed your mind because someone sat across the table and demanded that you did so?’  And these ambitious and highly interested individuals pause for a minute and remind themselves that it’s a point of pride to not be coerced into changing their minds.  And I remind them that that’s the way that any right thinking teacher or union leader would think.  But for us as teachers to presume that we’re going to bend somebody’s will or policy orientation by sitting across the table and demanding that they do so is just as foolhardy.

What we really have to do is realize that we’re not going to change the graduation rates in this country, we’re not going to change the proficiency and exit rates in this country, by demanding that somebody else change their mind.  We need to be responsible not only for our minds and its change but for engaging the minds of people with whom we work, so that we’re all solving the problem together.

Brad Jupp Reflects

And you don’t learn that skill [any] better than you do than when you’re teaching.  So I think teachers are in the right position to take up the lead in the next generation of reform.  But they’re going to have to go back to their roots in the classroom, where they get 4^th graders to learn how to multiply fractions, or where they get 6^th graders to read Ezra Pound’s The Seafarer.  Those are the things that are the hard, right things that we’re best at and we should go about solving education reform matters using the same skills.

***

There are certainly a lot of compelling ideas here.  Do you agree with the points raised in this conversation?  In what ways can you imagine teachers here in the Boston Public Schools ‘taking up the lead’ in the dialogue and work of school improvement and reform?

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The time that President Obama spent on the theme of education during the recent State of the Union address was admittedly short–which is why this article by the current Teaching Ambassador Fellows based in Washington DC (with BPS’s own Shakera Walker among them) was so refreshing to read.

Let me admit my bias upfront:  I think this piece situates teachers in the swirl of education reform and education policies exactly right.  Feel free to share your own thoughts at the end of the blog article below.

Teachers Want to Lead the Transformation of their Profession

“Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal.  Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility:  To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.”

– President Barack Obama, January 24, 2012, “State of the Union”

Tuesday night President Barack Obama said what many teachers in America have been yearning to hear from their president: teachers matter, we change lives, and we do this hard work to make a difference in the lives of students.

He also acknowledged what every good teacher knows: that an accountability system that puts too much emphasis on test scores undermines a well-rounded education. But implicit in his speech was a challenge to America and to teachers to rebuild and strengthen the profession – a challenge that teachers are more than eager to accept.

As 2011 U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellows, we have heard from many teachers that the field has lost its luster. In our role as Teaching Ambassadors, we have talked with teachers in many groups, and we have heard real despondency over the constraints of NCLB that have caused schools to focus on testing and teacher evaluation in ways that are oppressive and rob our profession of much of the joy of teaching and learning.

We’ve listened to countless stories about a law that has raised standards without providing support for schools to meet them. And we have cringed when some of our most effective colleagues acknowledged that they can no longer afford to stay in a difficult profession that asks so much of them but barely affords a middleclass lifestyle. “We didn’t get into teaching to be millionaires,” they say, “but we have to be able to feed our families.”

What we like about the President’s speech is not that he acknowledges our grievances though, admittedly, it feels good to be heard. What appeals to us is that the President understands that as a country we must do much more than simply tweak a structure that is not working. Educators want to lead the transformation and rebuilding of teaching so that our work improves students’ lives and restores pride in our profession.

Teachers welcome this transformation. Neither students nor teachers are served by a structure that treats some teachers like interchangeable cogs in a machine. We long to lead our own profession because when we drive our craft, we will see huge shifts in the responsibility, leadership, pay and respect. As NEA President Dennis Van Roekel describes in the NEA’s December 8, 2011 Action Agenda to Strengthen Teaching, “The true essence” of our work “is putting teachers in charge of the quality of their profession.”

What would teachers do if they ran the schools? We would raise the bar for membership in our profession, recruiting the best candidates and insisting that teacher preparation programs become more rigorous and relevant. About 62 percent of all new teachers—almost two-thirds—report they felt unprepared for the realities of their classroom. As Secretary Duncan has said, “Imagine what our country would do if 62 percent of our doctors felt unprepared to practice medicine—you would have a revolution in our medical schools.”

A transformed profession would give teachers much more responsibility and flexibility to make decisions that meet their students’ educational needs–allowing access to and training with technology, shifting class sizes, and restructuring the school day so that they have time to collaborate with colleagues and engage in professional learning and problem-solving.

We would offer teachers a professional salary and career pathways that acknowledge their skill and commitment in one of the most complex, demanding, and important jobs in the world. We would insist on great school leaders, with principals who have high expectations, develop all teachers as lifelong learners, and create positive school cultures where students and teachers succeed.

As the President acknowledged, teachers are creative and passionate. But like workers in many other professions, we expect to be held accountable for results. We yearn to help create fair and thorough teacher evaluation systems and have access to data to make informed decisions about what is working and what isn’t, to direct our professional learning, and to help decide who stays in our profession. President Obama was right when he said, “That is a bargain worth making.”

Now more than ever, teachers long to lead their profession so that we finally resolve the important educational challenges in this country. A quarter of our children fail to finish high school on time and barely four in ten earn any type of post-secondary degree. For children of color, outcomes are even worse. When we see the statistics–that 7,000 students drop out of school every day–we feel pain for those teens and shame and guilt that we were not able to prevent this tragedy.

On top of that, school districts are getting ready to slam into an awful reality, that before the end of the decade, more than a million Baby Boomer teachers—fully a third of America’s teachers–will retire or leave the teaching profession. To recruit and retain the best teachers, we need to offer rewarding jobs and competitive salaries.

We were especially pleased to read in the Blueprint for an America Built to Last, released yesterday with the speech transcript, that the President plans to ask Congress for funding that will “challenge states and districts to work with their teachers and unions to reform the entire teaching profession – from training and licensing to compensation, career ladders and tenure.”

Educators want to take on this work. As highly skilled specialists, we are not afraid of owning our profession. We are not afraid of being held accountable for results when we are given the responsibility and flexibility to craft our profession. We are confident that the President understands what it will take to transform teaching to meet the challenges of the 21^st Century, and we are eager to join with our colleagues across the country in moving the profession forward.

2011 U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellows Geneviève DeBose, Claire Jellinek, Greg Mullenholz, Shakera Walker, and Maryann Woods-Murphy.

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Are you a teacher looking for an unparalleled opportunity to learn about education policy? Are you interested in bringing the voice of the teacher to local, state and federal avenues and to also bring relevant information back to your local school and school district? I was fortunate to participate in the U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching Ambassador Program over the 2008-2009 school year. And over the last few years, the theme of ‘once a Fellow, always a Fellow’ has continued to open learning opportunities for me as a teacher, as well as the ongoing expectation that I continue to work on increasing the capacity and efficacy of teachers to be heard by our local leadership and institutions…and beyond.

Information about the Teaching Ambassador Fellowship and application information can be found here. Do pass on the word to anyone you know who might be interested. The application deadline for this year is February 22, 2012.

If you have any questions about the Fellowship or want to know more about my personal experiences with it, don’t hesitate to drop me a line. As of this year, four BPS teachers have been a part of it–Steven Berbeco of Charlestown High School, Robert Baroz of the Curley School and Shakera Walker of Young Achievers Science and Mathematics Pilot School. Robert is a current Classroom Fellow and Shakera is a current Washington Fellow.

Represent!

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There were some bitter, bitter winds cutting through our bundled coats, doubly wrapped scarves and clenched hoods this Wednesday evening at the BTU rally before the school committee meeting.  The enthusiasm of the hundreds of gathered teachers and other allies, however, was inspiring to witness.

Here are some photos I took from the event.  Consider sharing in the comment section below.  Were you there?  What were your thoughts on the gathering?  Did you feel a pulse of unity as we waved signs, blew whistles and waved at drivers smiling our way?  What should be next?

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I had the unique opportunity to attend a convening of the twelve Race to the Top state teams in Washington DC this past week.  In case you haven’t heard, Race to the Top is the federal competitive grant program that incentivizes participating states to either build or accelerate school reform efforts around a few key, identified areas:  college and career ready standards, teacher and leader effectiveness, data systems to improve instruction and turning around struggling schools.  There are sizable dollar amounts behind the RttT program– four billion dollars.  That’s right.  Bil-lion.

I learned quite a lot, along with some other dynamic teacher colleagues from the Teaching Ambassador Fellowship.  And while I do hear and understand the vocal criticisms to the program, namely the continued emphasis on testing and unknowns related to creating ‘value-added measures’ in teacher evaluation, we can’t ignore the opportunity (and urgency) of getting thoughtful teachers in on the conversation now to shape and inform its ultimate policies.  Massachusetts is one of the RttT states and decisions and policies are being made real-time.

There was one particular theme of the RttT convening, however, that continues to run through my head.  It relates to the emphasis, whether intentional or subliminal, on the individual teacher as the most important factor in the efforts to improve learning outcomes for students across the nation.  I raised some of these issues in the context of a focusing illusion a few weeks ago. And this op-ed piece by a Los Angeles charter school teacher does a compelling job laying out her complex feelings around this same emphasis.

Take a moment to read it and consider leaving your own comments/thoughts at the end of this post.  What messages are you getting around the levers that are most important for improving our schools and closing achievement gaps?  Do you agree or disagree with those emphases?  Do you understand the evolving policies at the federal, state and local levels and how they could potentially impact your work as a teacher?  How can extraordinary and hard working teachers organize and contribute to the improvement of our public schools in a meaningful and sustainable way?

Extraordinary isn’t enough.

Yes, we need to get rid of bad teachers. But we can’t demand that teachers be excellent in conditions that preclude excellence.

July 31, 2011|Ellie Herman | Ellie Herman is a teacher at Animo Pat Brown Charter High School in South Los Angeles

The kid in the back wants me to define “logic.” The girl next to him looks bewildered. The boy in front of me dutifully takes notes even though he has severe auditory processing issues and doesn’t understand a word I’m saying. Eight kids forgot their essays, but one has a good excuse because she had another epileptic seizure last night. The shy, quiet girl next to me hasn’t done homework for weeks, ever since she was jumped by a knife-wielding gangbanger as she walked to school. The boy next to her is asleep with his head on the desk because he works nights at a factory to support his family. Across the room, a girl weeps quietly for reasons I’ll never know. I’m trying to explain to a student what I meant when I wrote “clarify your thinking” on his essay, but he’s still confused.

It’s 8:15 a.m. and already I’m behind my scheduled lesson. A kid with dyslexia, ADD and anger-management problems walks in late, throws his books on the desk and swears at me when I tell him to take off his hood.

The class, one of five I teach each day, has 31 students, including two with learning disabilities, one who just moved here from Mexico, one with serious behavior problems, 10 who flunked this class last year and are repeating, seven who test below grade level, three who show up halfway through class every day, one who almost never comes. I need to reach all 31 of them, including the brainiac who’s so bored she’s reading “Lolita” under her desk.

I just can’t do it.

I’ve been thinking about the challenges of teaching a large and diverse class in a new context lately. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently said that, in his view, the billions spent in the U.S. to reduce class size was a bad idea. Many countries with high academic achievement, he noted, have accepted larger class sizes to pay talented teachers more and concentrate larger numbers of kids with the best teachers. “The best thing you can do,” he said recently in an interview with Andrea Mitchell, “is get children in front of an extraordinary teacher.”

That’s a common viewpoint at the moment. Every day I see data showing that in countries such as Japan and South Korea, students score higher in reading and math, often with larger classes, and that the U.S. has spent a tremendous amount of money reducing class size to little effect.

But a huge percentage of students in Japan and South Korea pay for after-school tutoring to make up for a lack of individualized attention at school. Finland, with the best scores in the world, has average class sizes in the 20s, and it caps science labs at 16. Still, it’s become a popular fantasy that all you need is a superstar teacher, and that he or she will be just as effective even as budget cuts force us to pack more kids into each classroom.

I’ve taught for the last three years at a charter high school in South-Central Los Angeles where all the teachers are excellent. Our test scores are high. We have terrific administrators, and because teachers are a priority, unlike almost any other LAUSD school, we haven’t had layoffs; even so, our school has had to allow enrollment to rise to stay on budget. My largest class last year was 34. My smallest was 20. And I can assure you I was a whole lot more “extraordinary” in my smallest than in my largest.

I’m not sure what the breaking point is, but once you get much above 25 students, providing individual attention becomes difficult. To keep my English class of 31 under control, I have to rely on high-energy routines and structured group activities. In place of freewheeling discussion, I pepper the room with rapid-fire questions. To respond to their essays, I use a rubric emphasizing the four or five qualities I’m targeting for the whole class, and then write one or two short individualized sentences at the bottom of the page.

With more than 150 students in my classes, I don’t have enough time to spend more than five or 10 minutes on each essay.

Do students really learn best this way? A whole chunk of my students are alienated by this highly structured environment: the artists, the rebels, the class clowns — in other words, some of my smartest kids.

On a good day, about a fourth of my students don’t do the reading or the homework; if I set up a conference after school, they might show up and they might not. Why? Because one kid thinks he has an STD, and another girl’s brother just got out of juvie, and another guy wandered to the ice cream truck and forgot. Because they’re teenagers. Because they’re human.

And that’s my biggest problem with the myth of the extraordinary teacher. The myth says it doesn’t matter whether the crazy kid in the back makes me laugh so hard I forget what we were talking about, or two brilliant kids refuse to accept my rubrics, scrawling their long-winded objections as a two-part argument that circles over every square inch of the backs of their essays — the makeup of the class, the nature of each student and the number of students are immaterial as long as I’m at the top of my game.

But nobody talks that way about the children of the wealthy, who can pay for individual attention in tutoring or private schools with small classes. I understand that we need to get rid of bad teachers, who will be just as bad in small classes, but we can’t demand that teachers be excellent in conditions that preclude excellence.

Our children — even our children growing up in poverty, especially our children growing up in poverty — deserve to have not only an extraordinary teacher but a teacher who has time to read their work, to listen, to understand why they’re crying or sleeping or not doing homework.

To teach each child in my classroom, I have to know each child in my classroom. We teachers need to bring not only our extraordinariness but our flawed and real and ordinary humanity to this job, which involves a complex and ever-changing web of relationships with children who often need more than we can give them.

I’m willing to work as hard as I can to be an excellent teacher, but as a country we have to admit that I’ll never be excellent if we continue to slash education budgets and cut teachers, which is what’s actually happening in California despite all our talk of excellence, particularly in schools that serve poor children. Until we stop that, we’ll never have equal education in this country.

Copyright 2011

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